Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Filling the Void

It seems that the Democratic Party has pretty much decided on a platform of "a stronger America" based on more troops in Iraq and being tougher on terror than Bush, at least judging by John Kerry and the supposed front-runners for the 2008 presidential nomination, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. This leaves old Democratic promises, like, y'know, health care and helping the poor, without a major-party home.

Into the breach step two feisty Latinos--Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Cuba's Fidel Castro. From Reuters:

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, popular with the poor at home, offered on Tuesday to help needy Americans with cheap supplies of gasoline.

"We want to sell gasoline and heating fuel directly to poor communities in the United States," the populist leader told reporters at the end of a visit to Communist-run Cuba....Chavez and Castro offered to give poor Americans free health care and train doctors free of charge.

You gotta love these guys! Can't you just see it--Gas for 99 cents a gallon at (Venezuelan-owned) Citgo stations, but only if your car is at least ten years old, makes a lot of noise, and has visible body damage. And little neighborhood clinics flying the Cuban flag sprinkled throughout Detroit, the Bronx, south central LA, and Mississippi, with poor kids flying off to Havana for med school rather than joining the Army. Hillary and Joe won't do that for us.

I know our oligarchs won't let it happen, but that Hugo and Fidel have the chutzpah to make such offers just makes me smile!